Effects of Single- and Dual-Task Practice on Acquiring Dual-Task Skill

In two experiments we examined the effects of single- and dual-task training on the acquisition and transfer of dual-task skill. Subjects performed two consistently mapped (CM) visual search tasks (word-category search and spatial-pattern search). Experiment 1 demonstrated benefits in both reaction time and accuracy for dual-task practice over comparable single-task practice when the two search tasks were combined. Experiment 2 examined the effects of task timing under single-task, synchronous dual-task, and asynchronous dual-task conditions. Benefits similar to those found in the first experiment were obtained. These results suggest that dual-task training can be more effective than single-task training when two dissimilar CM search tasks need to be performed together.